Hyper-inflation is one of my biggest worries. Central banks across the owrld have been actively trying to create inflation over the past several years, and that inflation is beginning to manifest over the past couple quarters. The problem is that central banks are historically notorious for overshooting their goals. Plus, the quantitative easing experiment is just that - an experiment. No one knows the long-term impact of flooding the world with massive amounts of fiat currency. Well, we know in the short-term it will certainly help lift equity markets. It appears to be moving into commodity markets now too. Where will all those new Dollars/Euros/Yen go next? Well, no one really knows the answer to that question do they?
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To add fuel to the fire, Yellen will step down and not change the interest rate at all.. it's almost as if they are trying to repeat 08.. oh wait they are! She's done more for the economy than Trump ever will, but we've got to look at the big picture.
People forget that trust is the sole reason we believe any currency has value.
Powell has pretty much the same mindset as Yellen, so things should continue along the same course at the Fed. March will almost certainly see a rate increase, and right now odds are we'll see three increases in 2018, which would get us to 2.25%.
However, there are signs of wage inflation, and that could force the Fed to begin raising rates more aggressively. I also think Europe will be surprised by an unexpected uptick in infaltion, forcing the ECB to move faster than they would like. And then there's Japan with its negative interest rate policy - crazy.
And underpinning all of this is the race to the bottom for currencies. It's been very surprising to see the USD tanking even as the U.S. is one of the few major economies raising interest rates. Shit is looking wonky, and then we also have the very old bull market in equities - not to mention the uptick in commodities pricing.
2018 could be quite a turbulent year, especially considering how low volatility has been in the markets. The normal investor isn't used to or prepared for normal market volatility.